.env.development.local Extra Quality Today

By overriding shared development variables on your local machine, you gain the ability to test with real-world data, debug with maximum verbosity, and connect to local services—all without fear of breaking your colleague's environment or committing a secret to Git.

API_KEY=your_local_api_key API_ENDPOINT=https://localhost:8080/api .env.development.local

There is a common pitfall: forgetting that .env.development.local exists. You add API_URL=https://production-api.com to .env.development.local for a one-time test. A week later, you are debugging why your local app is hitting production. You forgot you left the override in place. Solution: rm .env.development.local or use git status to see untracked files regularly. By overriding shared development variables on your local